An interpretation of the conversation between Colin Kaepernick and Nike, liberals and conservatives, capitalism and, uh, more capitalism…

COLIN KAEPERNICK: Glad to see my jersey sales are still raking millions. I can’t get a job because of racism and rich people colluding against me. But don’t worry, I’m suing to prove the business owners are out to get me.

NIKE MARKETERS: Right on, brother. That’s what we wanted to talk to you about. See, at Nike, we’ve done a lot of terrible things over the decades. Most of those things involve screwing over non-white workers in other countries. But don’t worry, those workers were just Asians LOL. Fortunately, by virtue (no pun intended) of running sweatshops in countries most Americans can’t find on a map, we’ve accumulated billions to spend on advertising to make people forget what total assholes we became in the name of producing footwear that makes people feel like Michael Jordan while managing their fantasy teams. So, since it’s Labor Day, we want to make you our spokesperson to show consumers that Nike stands with the workers (or non-workers in your case, LOL).

Now, you might be concerned about taking money that could’ve gone to those workers, but…actually nevermind I don’t know where I was going with that. Come to think of it, this might feed into that toxic Trump meme that ‘protestors are just in it for the money’…but I’m sure it’ll be fine. Not like you voted anyway, am I right? Point is, even though we’d *almost certainly* have owned more African slaves than you can count back in the day, now we just use Asians, and no one cares about Asians. So we’re going to pay you lots of money to show the world that Nike is on the side of social justice and progress.

CK: Great, let’s stick it to the man! Where do I sign? By the way, have you seen that new Boots Riley film where the sweatshop-owning corporation offers the successful black man a job to be their internal ‘MLK spokesperson’ to convince the slave-workers everything is cool? Such a great film. Really spoke to me.

NIKE: Oh yeah we *totally* saw that. Sending the paperwork to your agent now. Good luck finding a team this year!

LIBERALS: OMG can you believe these racists are boycotting Nike now bc of Kaepernick? They didn’t protest the terrible things Nike did before, so obviously they’re racists! Fine, let them wear New Balance! I’m gonna buy Nike shoes to show my support for social justice! Nike is the best brand! I literally forgot everything bad Nike ever did just now (other than to point it out in order to win an internet argument to boost my euphoria and forget my existential dread for the next 30 seconds until the next shiny thing comes along)!

*

NIKE: OMG that totally worked! Liberals are buying our shoes to show what “good people” they are, and conservatives will be back this weekend, when football season starts and they realize we sponsor all the teams from which they derive a sense of blissful self-annihilation through group identity!